I often find that some small thing can have a disproportional benefit. I have found an example in Firefox.

I am a great fan of Firefox but I always find it difficult to see what item has focus. The focus is indicated by bordering the item with very small black dots; the design of many web sites means that the dots are difficult to distinguish amongst the colours and patterns surrounding the items (try pressing the tab button now a few times and see if you can find the focus; if you are using IE or Firefox this will be a challenge). If you are a mouse user this is really not a problem; but, if like me, you try and avoid using the mouse by using the tab button to navigate around the screen, being able to see the focus is essential.

I suspect that many users do not even realise that focus exists. I often see people trying to fill in a form by moving the mouse to the required field and then typing even though the field is already the focus and they could just type, or moving the mouse to the submit button when just a click on the enter button would be faster and have the same effect.

The solution to my problem is an add-on called ‘Stylish'. It allows me to create my own user styles and comes with an example style (Bright Focus) that changes the focus indicator to a bright blue thick border, which stands out in all circumstances (it is basically a copy of the Safari focus). It means I can always see the focus even if the webmaster decides to let it bounce around the page in a less than logical order.

There is a discussion on the Mozilla website as to whether this should become the standard Firefox focus design. Instead of making this the standard I think there should be an option to configure the colour, thickness and style of the focus.

Having discovered this simple but useful use of users styles with Stylish I have looked at some of the other styles that have been developed. Two that caught my eye are:

• A simplified layout for wikipedia.
• Enlarging the searchbar when it is in focus so that you can see everything you type in.

Finally, and importantly, this latest surfing expedition brought me to Access Firefox which brings together ideas and discussions on Firefox and accessibility.